Calving Season
Observing calving can provide useful information to help avoid
calving losses. Information obtained at calving is essential to good
record keeping and includes:
1. Calving date (required).
Th e exact date may not be known if cattle are not checked daily,
but estimates within three days are acceptable. Calving date is
important to calculate weight per day of age where weaning
weight and weaning date have been recorded.
2. Proper identifi cation of calf and matching with female (re-
quired). If calf identifi cation is not done at birth, it must be
done prior to weaning. If done at some time other than birth,
an easy way to match calves with cows is to separate all the
calves from the cows for a few hours and then turn them back
together. Generally they will nurse immediately and can be
matched easily in this manner.
3. Calving ease score (very useful). Th e scoring system is:
1: unassisted
2: easy pull
3: hard or mechanical pull
4: Caesarean section
5: abnormal presentation.
If unobserved but no problems apparent, score a 1.
4. Birth weight (useful). If unknown, BIF recommends using 70
pounds for females and 75 pounds for males, which is the value
used by most computer programs to calculate 205 adjusted
weight if birth weight is omitted. Where birth weight and
weaning weight for an individual animal have been recorded,
the average daily gain for that calf can be calculated.